20 replies on “Las novias de mi hermano Lesson Plans”

Is there anywhere on your blog that you post the order that you use these lesson plans? I had my first semester of TPRS after years of textbook and loved it. I started with LICT and used MANY of your lesson plans as well. I have to tell you that my students loved your activities. The one they loved the most was El monstruo en el armario. I am starting another semester in January and I wanted to plan ahead. Since it was my first time with TPRS, I spend most of the time looking for activities that I could do while trying to meet all the objectives. Without a textbook to guide me, I was left looking for activities to meet them. Your blog has been a blessing to me and I cannot tell you enough how much I have enjoyed your activities and words of wisdom. N.Wallace

Martina: I bought these lesson plans and they are great. However, I have a question. Do you give the students a copy of the script that they read individually or do you read it as a class? Do you circle it when you read it for the first time? I know I can probably do it many ways, but I was wondering what you thought worked best? I will send you some of my ideas when I feel that it is worth it. Ha! Your ideas are so much better than mine! Once again, thanks for sharing.

Hi Cindy 🙂 My students never see a copy of the script UNLESS it is for an activity specifically designed to have them compare and contrast the version that they came up with in class with the version typed in the original script. If you don’t do storytelling, then you could circle the script as it is read, but you would lose the personalization and engagement that comes from storytelling. Ideally, the story should be “told” by giving students general facts from the story, and asking the students how to fill them in. (Ex: There is a boy. WHO IS THE BOY? (They decide.) He has a girlfriend. WHO IS HIS GIRLFRIEND? (They decide.) The facts on which they decide become the class’s own story script; a different version of the one that you hold in your hands. For more information about using scripts, try visiting this link: http://martinabex.com/tprs/scripts/using-story-scripts/ . I hope that is helpful! Let me know what I need to clarify.

So, you let them change the names “Jalen, Rebecca,” etc. to names they like? They can actually change venues, etc. and make the story their own, right? How do you keep it from getting too wild? 🙂 I started with just the story script before I ordered the lesson plans, so I am actually doing Day One of the Lesson Plans today. We spent all last week going over the Target Structures, Practice Sentences, Questions and PQA. (We actually had a snow day (1/2 day and 1/2 day on Friday)—Alabama weather—gotta love it!) It kind of messed up the progression. After getting the Lesson Plans, I see now how you actually incorporate the two together, so I’ll know next time. P.S. Again my native speakers said that Un día, Jalen está AL océano didn’t make sense. They said it should be “en el océano?!?” Made sense to me! 🙂

Probably–I’m excited that a native speaker just joined my 1A class, so now I have a proof reader in their, as well haha! My other classes are covered ;-). And YES–the names should be decided by the kids. Jalen is a boy in my class, and Rebecca is a girl in my class. You want to PERSONALIZE the story and let them have ownership over it. I’m going to make a post in the next few days about how to do this from the style of scripts that I use. Hopefully that will answer your crowd control question, too!

Another question?! (Sorry!) On Day Four of the Lesson Plans #2-“Have the students share their Campanadas, and type them up on the board as you go.” Do you ask for a volunteer and do they give you their ENTIRE story or just a few lines before moving to another volunteer?

It depends on how long they are. Often, I’ll try to get the whole thing up (if it’s not too long) and then have the next student fit theirs into the first students. Or, you might have students share one line at a time, and ask the next student to modify his/her story to fit it…so on and so forth.

I just love all of your stuff! I have bought so much from you, and use it a lot. I have to tell you, we just did the exercise where the students read me what they wrote about their murals and I type them up in front of the class. First, I had them predict how many words we would end up with, then I had one student read hers first. I typed up hers in front of the class, we saw the number we were at, then I had the next student read his. All I did was add information from each of the students that was not in the text already and everyone contributed! I thought they would be bored after listening to everyone (only 15 students because it’s a Catholic school), but they loved it! At the end, we were just shy of 200, and they wanted to keep going to reach 200. When we finished we were at 220 words altogether, and I think they really get how they will be able to reach 100 words in 10 minutes during a freewrite! AWESOME activities thank you so much!